Vandemark's Folly by Herbert Quick is about the life and adventures of an Iowan turnip farmer from New York. Excerpt: "The work of writing the history of this township--I mean Vandemark Township, Monterey County, State of Iowa--has been turned over to me. I have been asked to do this I guess because I was the first settler in the township; it was named after me; I live on my farm--the oldest farm operated by the original settler in this part of the country; I know the history of these thirty-six square miles of land and also of the wonderful swarming of peoples which made the prairies over; and the agent of the Excelsior County History..."

Biography of a man of late 19th century Iowa faced with dire problems on his farm.

Upon his death, Hendrik van Loon was described in The Times obituary as 'one of the most engaging products of the marriage between Holland and the United States'. One of FDR's true and closest friends, van Loon emigrated from the Netherlands to the United States at age 20, in 1902. Working as a historian, journalist, illustrator, and radio commentator, van Loon immersed himself in American cultural life from the 1920s through the '40s, until his death three months before D-Day. Van Loon's professional relationships and friendships with such distinguished persons as Sinclair Lewis, Van Wyck Brooks, H. L. Mencken, Albert Einstein, Herbert Hoover, and Fiorello La Guardia bolster his place as a celebrity of his times. This biography is an exciting and nuanced portrait of a man deeply involved in American cultural life in the first half of the twentieth century.